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From: cberlet@igc.apc.org (NLG Civil Liberties Committee)
Newsgroups: alt.conspiracy
Subject: Re: Bellant: Old Nazi Networks in US
Message-ID: <1299600123@igc.apc.org>
Date: 12 Dec 92 02:28:00 GMT
References: <1299600110@igc.apc.org>
Nf-ID: #R:cdp:1299600110:cdp:1299600123:000:11751
Nf-From: cdp.UUCP!cberlet Dec 11 18:28:00 1992
[Editor's note: This file was concatenated from the six original parts.
Header files, excepting ID's, have been removed for parts 2-6. knm Dec 14,
1992]
/* Written 9:10 pm Dec 8, 1992 by cberlet in igc:publiceye */
/* Written 8:30 pm Dec 6, 1992 by cberlet in igc:p.news */
/* Written 7:14 pm Mar 4, 1990 by nlgclc in igc:publiceye */
Bellant: Old Nazis/Allies 1
PART THREE - SECTION 1
ALLIES AND ALLEGIANCES
"Perhaps what is most wrong with the World Anti-Communist
League is what it hides behind and what it has rejected. In the
name of anti-communism, it has embraced those responsible for
death squads, apartheid, torture, and the extermination of
European Jewry. Along the way, it has repudiated democratic
government as a viable alternative, either to govern or to combat communism."
(Scott Anderson & Jon Lee Anderson,
[Dodd, Mead & Company, 1986]
- Roger Pearson, the White House and Racialism -
When journalists first saw the White House fundraising
letter dated April 14, 1982, written for Roger Pearson and signed
by Ronald Reagan, it was thought to be a fluke. Since Pearson, a
former leader of the World Anti-Communist League, was a
world-renowned racialist with a long history of associations with
neo-Nazi groups and individuals, a White House repudiation of the
letter was expected when the problem was discovered. After all,
it was the summer of 1984, and who would want Reagan connected in
any way with an advocate of racial extermination policies before
the November elections?
, however, pursued the story and
found out that the White House itself was unwilling to repudiate
the letter, or Pearson. [F-206] White House staff did say
Pearson would be asked to stop using the letter.
Anson Franklin, an assistant presidential press secretary,
added "the president has long held views opposing racial
discrimination in any form, and he would never condone anything
to the contrary. But that's a general statement; I'm not
addressing Dr. Pearson specifically."
When Roger Pearson first visited the U.S. in 1958, he
didn't seem a likely candidate to receive White House favors. At
the time he was the London-based organizer of the Northern
League, [f-207] a white supremacist European organization that
included former Nazi SS officials. The League was inclined toward
Nordic, pre-Christian pagan culture. [f-208]
Pearson's first American visit was arranged by
magazine, edited by Willis Carto. The magazine was an endorser
of the American Nazi Party. [F-209] called
Pearson "the world's foremost spokesman for the scientific and
forward looking view of nationalism. He is held in renown by
white nationalists the world over." [F-210]
Pearson moved to the U.S. in 1965, merging his magazine
with a Willis Carto publication to form , which Pearson edited for a short time. [F-211] The magazine
had over two dozen racialists and anti-Semites on its masthead,
including Austin App and C. M. Goethe, honorary president of the
American Coalition of Patriotic Societies. [f-212] Pearson
published four monographs in 1966 that represent the core of his
ideas. One monograph, titled , was "based
on Professor Hans F. K. Gunther's ." [F-213] Gunther was a top Third Reich
racial theoretician and Pearson associate from the Northern
League. [f-214]
In , published in 1966, Pearson's
writing reached the logical end of racial hatred:
"If a nation with a more advanced, more specialized, or in
any way superior set of genes mingles with, instead of
exterminating, an inferior tribe, then it commits racial suicide.
. . . [f-215]"
Pearson's monographs are still offered by neo-Nazi
booksellers today. [f-216] quoted
Pearson as saying "I'm not ashamed of anything I've said or
written." [F-217]
Pearson moved to Washington in 1975. Within a year his
Council on American Affairs was sponsoring seminars and
publishing monographs with persons such as Edwin Fuelner,
president of the Heritage Foundation; Ray Cline, former C.I.A.
deputy director; and others who would later become high officials
of the Reagan Administration. [f-218] His Council also became the
U.S. chapter of the World Anti-Communist League (WACL), an
international network including fascists, followers of the
authoritarian Korean cult-leader Rev. Sun Myung Moon, and
neo-Nazis. [f-219]
Pearson became the editor of the American Security
Council's [F-220] and
served on the board of the ASC's American Foreign Policy
Institute. [f-221] His co-editors were James Jesus
Angleton, former C.I.A. deputy director for counterintelligence,
and Robert C. Richardson III, the retired Air Force general who
worked in the Air Force's Politico- Military covert operations
branch. At the time he was working with the ASC and Pearson,
Richardson was also aiding the Wilson-Terpil operations to
Libya, involving secret gunrunning and explosives transfers. He
was also active in various ASC-spawned groups, such as the
Security and Intelligence Fund and Coalition for Peace through
Strength. The Council on American Affairs> is also a member of
the Coalition for Peace Through Strength.
Pearson was a member of the editorial board of , the monthly Heritage Foundation magazine, during this
period. In 1977, Heritage officials reciprocated, joining
Pearson's . When Pearson
decided to host the 1978 World Anti-Communist League (WACL)
conference in Washington, D.C., he was well established with
American and European Nazi networks, as well as the far right
of the Republican Party and the New Right. The WACL meeting
was not a total success for Pearson, however. The warned of "The Fascist Specter" behind WACL and
highlighted the conference participation of an Italian fascist
party, American neo-Nazis, and Pearson's own racialist
background. [F-222] Pearson's name soon disappeared from
the masthead. However, ASC president John
Fisher, who addressed the WACL meeting, [F-223] did not
drop Pearson from the American Foreign Policy Institute board.
In a sense, the Pearson-Heritage link wasn't severed
either. Heritage's director for domestic issues, Stuart Butler,
joined Pearson's , as did right-wing sociologist Ernest
van den Haag of , who is on the editorial board
of the Heritage Foundation's .
When van den Haag was asked in 1984 about his Pearson
association, he said he didn't remember the journal at first, but
several minutes later insisted it wasn't a racist publication.
Van den Haag is apparently not offended by a little
racialism himself. "I support the voluntary sterilization
proposals of William Shockley," he volunteered in a 1984
interview. Van den Haag wrote a monograph on the 1954 Supreme
Court desegregation decision which argued that the decision was
wrong. He has also claimed that Blacks are inferior to whites: "I
am all in favor of improving the quality of education for all.
But this can be done only if pupils are separated according to
ability (whatever determines it). And this means very largely
according to race." [f-224] Van den Haag's writings have been
distributed for years by the International Association for the
Advancement of Ethnology and Eugenics (IAAEE), a racialist
organization on whose executive board van den Haag served. [f-225]
associate Stuart Butler simply insisted that
Pearson was not a racist. Donald Senese, also associated with
Pearson's and a former Department of Education
official, insisted that Pearson wasn't a racist, and that his
monographs were written long ago. When he was told that Pearson
continues to defend his writings, he said that "this interview
isn't going anywhere," and hung up the phone. Pearson continues
to publish a racialist journal, , which uses
body and head measurements, such as the cephalic index, to
identify "ideal types" among races. He also publishes the
through his Institute for
the Study of Man. He maintained contact with European racialists
not only through WACL, but also as a board member of , a French highbrow neo-Nazi group. [F-226]
After the story, Pearson's , which is co-published
by George Mason University, added two officials of former
Interior Secretary and New Right activist James Watt's
>Mountain States Legal Foundation. [F-227] Pearson was
elected to head University Professors for Academic Order (UPAO),
a group that includes many members of the Heritage Foundation,
the Reagan Administration and the Mont Pelerin Society. [f-228]
The latter is a group of about 500 ultraconservatives whose best
known economists, Milton Friedman and Friedrich von Hayek, were
architects of the economy of Pinochet's Chile. Both advocated a
form of dictatorship as part of the economic plan. Heritage
Foundation president Edwin Fuelner is treasurer of the Society.
Another board member of UPAO, white supremacist Ralph Scott, a
former vice-president of DANK, [f-229] the Nazi-apologists,
recently became head of UPAO. Scott, who has praised the book
, [F-230] a white-supremacist
discourse, was named to the Iowa Civil Rights Advisory Commission
in 1981 by the Reagan Administration. Scott later become chair of
the Iowa group, which advises the U.S. Civil Rights Commission,
but stepped down in 1988 after an article by Barry Mehler in revealed his background. [F-231] Scott and Pearson
have also received tens of thousands of dollars from the Pioneer
Fund, [f-232] which assists researchers attempting to prove Black
inferiority. [f-233]
One well-connected Pearson associate is Sam Crutchfield,
who has been the attorney for the racialist IAAEE, for a number
of Jesse Helms' organizations, and for Pearson's Institute for
the Study of Man. [f-234] In addition to serving on the Editorial
Advisory Board of a Pearson publication, Crutchfield, an
attorney, set up the Institute for Democracy, Education and
Assistance (IDEA) on behalf of Oliver North and his courier,
Robert Owen. [f-235]
Pearson has friends at the American Security Council, the
Heritage Foundation, and among Reagan appointees, as well as
several aides to Jesse Helms. [f-236] He is connected to a
network of academic racialists in the U.S. and abroad.
Long-established ties to Saudi Arabia, Korea, Taiwan and South
America from his WACL days continue to serve him well. When the
article came out five weeks before the
election, the White House decided to stick with Pearson. He was
apparently still seen as part of the Reagan team.
Senator Alfonse D'Amato wrote a plank into the proposed
1984 GOP platform denouncing "those who preach all forms of
hatred, bigotry, racism and anti-Semitism." [f-237] A statement
from his office added, "there should never be room for compromise
on issues like this. . . .Racism and anti-Semitism must be
condemned outright--without hesitation." [f-238] D'Amato declined
all comment on the Pearson-White House ties.
When George Bush denounced Walter Mondale a week before the
1984 election as soft on anti-Semitism, no one looked at Reagan's
ties to Roger Pearson, one of the foremost Nazi apologists in
America and clearly one of the best-connected racialists in the world.
Message-ID: <1299600124@igc.apc.org>
References: <1299600110@igc.apc.org>
PART THREE - SECTION 2
ALLIES AND ALLEGIANCES
- The ASC and the World Anti-Communist League -
The American Security Council not only has ties to the
aggressively pro-military network warned of by Senator Fulbright,
but ASC is also one of the key U.S. links to the World
Anti-Communist League (WACL). The League, described extensively
in a 1986 book, , is an umbrella group for
Latin American death squad leaders, Hitler collaborators,
followers of the Rev. Sun Myung Moon, rightist dictatorships,
and anti-Semitic activists, some of whom are connected to the
quasi-Nazi Liberty Lobby. [F-239] As early as 1978 The
described the fascist and neo-Nazi elements
affiliated with WACL. The article carried the headline:
"The Fascist Specter Behind The World Anti-Red League."
[F-240] In 1984 the unsavory elements of WACL were
detailed in a series of columns by Jack Anderson. [f-241]
Alternative publications since 1978 have carried articles about
the fascist and Nazi undercurrents in WACL. [f-242]
Despite this journalistic record, when the World
Anti-Communist League was named in the "Iran Contragate"
congressional hearings into the Contra supply networks of Oliver
North, not one major news outlet reported the fascist
constituencies within WACL or the leading role played in WACL by
followers of Sun Myung Moon.
Moon, of course, is no friend of democracy. He is a
theocratic authoritarian who considers himself the Son of God and
the new Messiah. Moon and his many front organizations have long
been used by the Korean CIA as a lobbying and propaganda vehicle
to advance the twin goals of maintaining high levels of U.S.
military and economic aid, despite successive repressive regimes
in South Korea and the continued presence of U.S. armed forces in
South Korea. Moon's organizations have supported WACL financially
and have helped solidify cooperation between WACL and members of
the American political right wing. [f-243]
Since 1970 there have been three organizations that have
served as the U.S. branch of WACL. All three are in the ASC's
Coalition for Peace Through Strength:
*** {The American Council for World Freedom} was, from 1970
to 1975, WACL's U.S. affiliate. Composed of 35 U.S. groups, it
was formed at the urging of Taiwan. Its first chairman was ASC's
John Fisher. [f-244]
*** {The Council on American Affairs} was the second U.S.
branch of WACL from 1975 to 1980. It was chaired by racialist
Roger Pearson, who had strong ASC links throughout that period.
*** {The U.S. Council for World Freedom} (USCWF) was formed
in 1981 by retired Major General John Singlaub. It immediately
became the third group to serve as the U.S. branch of WACL. While
Singlaub was Field Education director for the ASC for the next
three years, he cultivated USCWF and personal contacts abroad.
Singlaub attended the August, 1981 WACL meeting in Taiwan.
[f-245] On June 25, 1982 he told the Anti-Bolshevik Bloc of
Nations (ABN) [described in detail later in this report] meeting
in Munich, Germany that it was his "objective to organize all
anti-communist forces in the world, so as to not only contain
this communist threat, but to bring about its final and
{unequivocal demise}" [emphasis in the original], according to a
paraphrased remark in an ABN periodical. [f-246] In 1984,
Singlaub assumed the role of Chairman of the World Anti-Communist League.
Although Singlaub began devoting his time to WACL, he kept
the ASC briefed on his activities. Fisher served on the USCWF
advisory board and Singlaub served on three ASC boards. The ASC
is also one of 17 member organizations of the Coalition for World
Freedom, the political action arm of the U.S. Council for World
Freedom. At the 1984 WACL conference the ASC was also represented
by Sam Dickens, who sat on a Contra aid panel. Another panel,
concerned with aiding UNITA in Angola, reached the conclusion it
was advisable to consult with Fisher on the best way to proceed
with pressuring Gulf/Chevron Oil out of Angola. Other ASC leaders
also participated in the WACL meeting.
WACL was considered an important vehicle for Reagan's
Central America policy. The White House sent warm greetings to
the 1984 meeting in San Diego. [f-247] A U.S. military honor
guard was also provided, as had been the case with other USCWF
events in previous years. The White House sent R. Lynn Rylander,
Deputy Director of the International Security Agency in the
Pentagon, who kept the White House briefed on events as the
meeting progressed. [f-248] His boss, Neal Koch, served as the
Pentagon's representative on a panel coordinating assistance to
the Contras, in concert with Oliver North.
At the 1984 WACL meeting, Singlaub announced the launching
of the private aid campaign for the Contras. WACL, he declared,
was going to lead efforts around the world on behalf of the
Contra cause.
Singlaub planned to approach the Taiwan and South Korean
dictatorships for Contra aid. The reported that
Singlaub told Congress that Assistant Secretary of State Abrams
had "told him not to make the request, explaining that it would
be made instead `at the highest level,' which Singlaub said he
believed meant the White House." Holly Sklar, in her book
, cites testimony from the
Iran-Contra hearings and concludes that Singlaub did approach
both Taiwan and South Korea for Contra aid and then passed those
contacts on to Oliver North. [F-249] Both Taiwan and South
Korea have historically assumed leadership roles and provided
substantial funds for WACL, as has the Saudi Arabian monarchy.
The Canadian branch of WACL, the Canadian Freedom
Foundation, headed by John Gamble, works closely with the U.S.
Council for World Freedom (USCWF) and Singlaub. Together USCWF
and the Canadian Freedom Foundation form the North American
Regional unit of WACL (NARWACL). Gamble and Singlaub alternate as
chair of NARWACL. Gamble was implicated in the Iran-Contra
funding network when a firm for which he served as treasurer and
director, Vertex Investments, was discovered to have invested in
the arms sale to Iran through two of his partners. The Canadian
Freedom Foundation (CFF) and Vertex both operate out of Gamble's
law office. [f-250]
At least two CFF leaders are active anti-Semites: Pat Walsh
is the Canadian correspondent for the quasi-Nazi Liberty Lobby
newspaper the [F-251] and Paul Fromm helped
found the neo-Nazi Western Guard. [f-252]
The Western Guard is led by John Ross Taylor, who served 51
months in detention for pro-Nazi activities during WWII. [f-253]
Taylor also leads Canadian contingents to Aryan Nations meetings,
including a commemoration of the deaths of members of The Order,
a paramilitary offshoot of Aryan Nations that engaged in
robberies and murder in its effort to overthrow the U.S.
Government. [f-254]
Shortly after the 1984 WACL conference, the National
Security Council recommended that Reagan approve a plan that made
Singlaub "the chief `authorized' contact for private fund
raising," according to the Associated Press. His selection, due
to "his military background and international connections," was
verbally approved by President Reagan. [f-255]
Message-ID: <1299600125@igc.apc.org>
References: <1299600110@igc.apc.org>
PART THREE - SECTION 3
ALLIES AND ALLEGIANCES
- Ukrainian Nationalism and Nazi Collaboration -
In 1983, the White House proved that a Nazi whose
organization collaborated with SS units and mass murder, and who
helped maintain a Nazi organization for four decades, can still
be an honored guest of the President. [f-256]
Yaroslav Stetsko was the source of that lesson. Stetsko,
who died in July 1986, worked with intelligence agencies of Nazi
Germany, and briefly established himself as a pro-Nazi premier of
the Ukraine under German military occupation. [f-257]
The Ukraine, now a Republic of the Soviet Union, is an
Eastern European region of lush farmland that has a long history
of nationalist fervor. During the rise of European fascism after
World War I, some Ukrainian nationalist groups tied their hopes
to fascism as an ideology, and then collaborated with Hitler and
Nazism in World War II.
One Ukrainian nationalist group was the Organization of
Ukrainian Nationalists (OUN) which split into two organizations:
a less militant wing, led by Andrew Melnyk and known as OUN-M,
and the extremist group of Stepan Bandera, known as OUN-B. The
Nazis preferred the radical nationalist OUN-B. [f-258] During the
German military occupation, the Ukraine witnessed terrible
atrocities against Jews and other groups targeted by Nazi
policies. The OUN-B organized military units that participated in
these atrocities. With the collapse of the Third Reich, many
Ukrainian collaborationists fled their homeland.
After the war, the Organization of Ukrainian
Nationalists-Bandera (OUN-B), a clandestine group financed in
part by German intelligence and led by Stetsko, accelerated its
work in the West. A secretive group, OUN-B's tracks are difficult
to follow. "You have to understand. We are an underground
organization. We have spent years quietly penetrating positions
of influence," explained an OUN-B member who insisted on
anonymity. The positions of influence under discussion were
Reagan Administration appointments. All of the OUN-B's key
Administration contacts were through an organization called the
Ukrainian Congress Committee of America (UCCA), headquartered in
New York City.
The UCCA is described as heavily influenced but not totally
controlled by the OUN-B. Supposedly an umbrella organization of
Ukrainian-American groups, there are groups within UCCA that are
complete OUN-B fronts. [f-259]
The White House had looked favorably on the Ukrainian
Congress Committee of America, appointing its chairman, Lev
Dobriansky, Ambassador to the Bahamas in 1983. Dobriansky is a
longtime ASC official. His daughter Paula was put on the National
Security Council. George Nesterczuk, former director of the
Ukrainian National Information Service (UNIS), which is the
Washington, D.C. affiliate of the UCCA, was appointed deputy
director of the Office of Personnel Management. In 1984 he became
Deputy Director of the U.S. Information Agency. [f-260]
In 1984, Bohdan Futey, head of the Cleveland branch of the
UCCA and a Republican Heritage Groups Council activist, was
appointed head of the U.S. Foreign Claims Commission. [f-261]
Futey and Nesterczuk are described as the contact points between
the OUN-B and the White House. [f-262] The top OUN-B leader for
external affairs in the United States is Bohdan Fedorak, who also
chairs the Southeast Michigan UCCA branch. He maintains contacts
with Futey and Nesterczuk. It was through this network that
arrangements were made for Reagan to make a campaign stop in
October, 1984 at the Ukrainian Cultural Center in the Detroit
suburb of Warren, Michigan. [f-263] The Center is headed by
Fedorak, who has been a delegate to WACL conferences for many
years as a lieutenant of the Stetskos. [f-264]
In 1985 the UCCA's Committee on Foreign Affairs, chaired by
Fedorak, continued pressing Congress against the Office of
Special Investigations, the Justice Department unit charged with
bringing action against suspected Nazi war criminals and
collaborators in the United States. Futey and Nesterczuk are also
members of that committee. [f-265] Such agitation on behalf of
suspected war criminals and mass murderers did not deter the
State Department's Committee for Security and Cooperation in
Europe (CSCE) from working with the National Captive Nations
Committee, co-sponsoring a series of hearings on human rights
problems in the Soviet Union in June, 1986. [f-266]
The Captive Nations Committee is essentially an OUN-B front
that operates out of the UNIS office in Washington, D.C. It has
local affiliates around the country (Fedorak chairs the Detroit
committee), but the UNIS office told an interviewer that the
National Captive Nations Committee had been inactive. Committee
literature available in the office was at least four years old.
No current board of directors was available. A UNIS employee
considered it a paper organization. The hearings held jointly by
the State Department and Captive Nations in Detroit were hosted
by Fedorak at his Ukrainian Cultural Center. [f-267]
The UCCA is also a member of ASC's Coalition for Peace
Through Strength. Like so many elements of the Coalition and the
American Security Council, it is networked into the World
Anti-Communist League (WACL). The masthead of the UCCA's
lists several representatives from Taiwan
and Korea, both major funders of WACL. [F-268]
Wherever the OUN-B has political involvement, the UCCA
seems to be its representative. In the U.S. Council for World
Freedom, chaired by Singlaub, the OUN-B is represented by
Secretary-General Walter Chopiwskyj (who has also organized the
Republican Heritage Groups Council in Arizona and is president of
the national Captive Nations Committee). [f-269] The only public
indication of the OUN-B presence in the UCCA is in the U.S.
Council for World Freedom's political arm, the Coalition for
World Freedom, of which the UCCA is a member. [f-270] The Council
is the U.S. branch of the World Anti-Communist League, in which
the Stetskos play a major role. [f-271]
The UCCA has also played a leading role in opposing federal
investigations of suspected Nazi war criminals since those
queries got underway in the late 1970's. [f-272] Some UCCA
members have many reasons to worry--reasons which began in the 1930's.
Even before Hitler came to power, the German Nazi Party was
seeking and working with like-minded political groups around the
world. By the time the Nazis came to power, the OUN was one group
that received money and training from Germany. [f-273] The OUN-B
was not only an instrument to aid Hitler's war aims against the
Soviet Union, but also to serve his intelligence agencies in the
United States.
There are Ukrainian communities within most large urban
population centers in the United States. In the 1930's, German
military intelligence worked with the OUN as it established and
financed a variety of front organizations to provide cover for
propaganda and espionage activities in the United States. In each
city with a Ukrainian community, the OUN established cells. The
great majority of Ukrainian-Americans had no idea of the OUN
agenda. Newspapers and organizations were taken over--one such
newspaper even printed instructions on how to make a homemade
bomb.
According to , a 1942 book on Axis spy and
sabotage operations in the U.S., the OUN was "set up under the
supervision of the Intelligence Department of the German War
Office." Other authors argue that the OUN was not controlled by
>German Intelligence to this extent, although OUN's military and
financial links to the Nazis are not in dispute. One U.S. Army
captain who got involved in stealing military secrets for the
OUN lost his commission. [F-274]
By far the greatest crimes of the Ukrainian nationalists
were against other Ukrainians. The OUN-B internalized the
ideology of their Nazi mentors, which included viewing the world
in terms of racial nationalism. "Nationalism is based on
feelings, which are carried by the racial blood," was the way one
OUN-B publication explained their views on the subject. [f-275]
In John Armstrong's , OUN-B's views are
described as having "tended to drive the movement still further
in the direction of deification of the mystic concept of the
nation, even to the point of racism." [f-276] For those judged
not to be pure Ukrainians, this meant trouble.
That trouble rolled in on the treads of German tanks in the
Ukraine in June, 1941. Stetsko and German-commanded OUN-B militia
arrived in the city of Lwow (Lvov) with them. [f-277] Stetsko
declared a short-lived Ukrainian government, with himself as
premier, pledged to fight as an ally for Hitler's "New Order."
In , Lucy Dawidowicz writes
that "In Lwow, the Germans and Ukrainians, in house to house
hunts for Jews, shot them randomly on the spot." [F-278]
She noted that later "the Ukrainians staged massive pogroms,
slaughtering thousands and carrying off other thousands of Jews
to [the German] headquarters." [f-279] A
concentration camp was also built in Lwow. An estimated 900,000
Jews disappeared from the Ukraine during the German occupation.
[f-280] Heavy persecution of Poles also took place in this
region, mirroring the German policy in Poland.
Militias and military units led by the OUN-B were involved
with these crimes. [f-281] Although Stetsko was under an
"honorary arrest" by the Germans because the creation of the
Stetsko regime hadn't been cleared by Berlin, he was still active
in OUN-B affairs and was even allowed to travel. [f-282]
Ever the Nazi ally, Stetsko was released from his arrest
near the end of the war to help organize resistance to the Soviet
offensive that was rolling the German army back. The headlong
retreat of the Germans began after their defeat at Stalingrad at
the end of 1942. In 1943, the Germans inspired their
collaborators from the Ukraine, Bulgaria, Byelorussia and the
Baltic countries to form a Committee of Subjugated Nations to
coordinate resistance activity against the Soviet army. [f-283]
The Ukrainian Congress Committee of America chooses to
ignore the Ukrainian collaboration with the extermination of
Poles and Jews. A 1984 article in their
praised Pavlo Shandruk, who was the Ukrainian General (under
the Division's Commander-in-Chief German General Fritz Freytag)
of the 14th Waffen SS Galician Division during the final days
of the war.
The Galician division was renamed the First Ukrainian
Division of the Ukrainian National Army in April, 1945--two
weeks before the German surrender. The Division remained under
complete German military control during WWII. [F-284]
The Veterans of the First Ukrainian Division is a group member of
the UCCA. [f-285]
When the Stetskos visited the White House on July 19, 1983,
Reagan told them that "Your struggle is our struggle. Your dream
is our dream." [f-286] The Stetskos' dream, however, does not
represent an alteration of their wartime goals. Slava Stetsko,
for instance, wrote a forward to a book, , which
offered a glossary of definitions of political terms:
"Anti-Semitism: A smear word used by Communists against
those who effectively oppose and expose them."
"Fascist: An anti-Communist."
"Nazi or Hitlerite: An active anti-Communist.[f-287]"
Slava Stetsko, who is the editor of ABN and OUN-B
publications, described the book as "objective, factual" and
"highly recommended." [f-288]
Further, the OUN-B "dream" includes a racial conception.
Although it passes itself off as an anti-communist organization,
its primary belief is anti-Russian. [f-289] As an OUN-B member
described it: "The problem isn't 70 years of Communism, it's 300
years of Russian imperialism." [f-290] Thus, Russian
anti-communists are also seen as the enemy. Russians are not
allowed to be part of the ABN, Captive Nations Committee, or
World Anti-Communist League. says that "the
Russian character" is to blame "for this overwhelming Russian
desire for power, for expansion, for dictatorship." [f-291]
Nicolas Nazarenko, the Cossack Republican organizer says,
"Russian communists and anti-communists are all the same to me."[f-292]
The Ukrainian nationalists see a Ukrainian state under
their control as having "ethnographic borders," as was originally
proclaimed by a OUN-B Manifesto in December, 1940. [f-293] Put
more simply, the OUN-B sees Ukrainians as a separate,
classifiable race that have a right, when in power, to exclude
others from the Ukraine's borders. The realities of that
formulation were made bloodchillingly clear to the Poles and Jews
in the region when the OUN-B had temporary power six months after
the Manifesto was issued.
ALLIES AND ALLEGIANCES
- The Anti-Bolshevik Bloc of Nations, the White House, and the ASC -
The Anti-Bolshevik Bloc of Nations (ABN), which took its
current name in 1946, claims direct descent from the Committee of
Subjugated Nations, which was formed in 1943 by Hitler's allies,
including the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists (OUN) and
the Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA).
Nonetheless, while the name changed, the membership
remained the same. The dominant leadership of the ABN came from
the leadership of the Organization of Ukrainian
Nationalists-Bandera (OUN-B). The ABN brought together fascist
forces from Hungary, Bulgaria, Romania, the Ukraine, the Baltic
states, Slovakia and other nations. Today ABN unites fascist
emigre organizations from Eastern and Central Europe under one
umbrella. It serves as a common milieu in which many Coalition
for Peace Through Strength members associate and network. It is
also the Eastern European branch of the World Anti-Communist League.
A booklet published in 1960 by the ABN acknowledged its
members' alliance with Hitler: "That many of us fought on the
German side against Russian imperialism and Bolshevism, was in
our national interest. . .the fact that some of us fought on the
German side against Russia can be justified from the national,
political and moral point of view." [f-294]
The ABN in more recent years has maintained the impression
that they opposed the Nazis and Soviets simultaneously during
World War II. This historically dubious impression is conveyed by
the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists (OUN) that leads ABN.
But other groups that make up the ABN do not bother with an
anti-Hitler pretense.
Other ABN affiliates include:
*** {Slovak World Congress}. A successor organization to
the Nazi-allied Tiso regime of Slovakia. The Congress is part of
the Republican Heritage Groups Council and the Coalition for
Peace Through Strength.
*** {Bulgarian National Front}. The exiled successor group
to the Hitler-allied Bulgarian Legion. A member of the Coalition
for Peace Through Strength and part of the Republican Heritage
Groups Council.
*** {Supreme Committee for the Liberation of Lithuania}. Its
American branch, the Lithuanian-American Council, is a member of
the Coalition for Peace Through Strength. The head of the Detroit
branch of the Council, Algis Barauskas, who is also a local
Republican Heritage Groups Council activist, linked the
Lithuanian Republicans to the ABN. He stated in a 1985 interview
that the Lithuanian-American Republican National Federation is
connected to "the Lithuanian-American Council, then to the
Supreme Committee for the Liberation of Lithuania, to the ABN in Germany."
*** {World Federation of Free Latvians}. A member
organization of the Coalition for Peace Through Strength, the
federation has branches in six countries. Its U.S. branch, the
American Latvian Association, is active in the campaign against
the Justice Department's Office of Special Investigations,
discussed in the next section. The book
describes the ABN Latvian affiliate as "a band of Latvian leaders
who assisted the Nazis in exterminating the Jews of their
Baltic homeland." [F-295]
*** {Croatian Liberation Movement}. A pro-Ustashi affiliate
of the ABN. This group's leadership came from officials of the
German-created Croatian Ustashi regime of 1941-44. [f-296] It was
this regime that killed an estimated 750,000 Serbians, Gypsies
and Jews. The Croatian Liberation Movement, a front for the
post-War clandestine Ustashi, has been connected to bombings,
hijackings and assassinations in the 1970's. [f-297]
*** {Byelorussian Central Council}. The Nazi puppet
government in exile. The Council is linked to both the Republican
Heritage Groups Council and the Coalition for Peace Through
Strength through the Council's American branch, the
Byelorussian-American Association.
*** {Romanian Liberation Movement}. The Romanian affiliate
of ABN and the World Anti-Communist League. Its leader for many
years, Horia Sima, was also the head of the Romanian Iron Guard
following WWII. Sima could hardly claim to have fought the Nazis
and Soviets simultaneously, since he was released by the Germans
from house arrest to head a Romanian puppet government-in-exile.
It was set up by the Germans in Vienna in 1944, immediately after
the Romanian government abandoned the Axis and sued for peace
with the Allies. As head of the government, Sima formed Romanian
military units which fought on Germany's behalf on the Eastern
Front from 1944-45. Sima's government-in-exile was disbanded nine
days after Hitler's death. [f-298]
The head of foreign affairs for the Romanian organization
under Sima is Alexander Ronnett of Chicago, a long time Iron
Guard commander, and delegate to WACL meetings for 16 years. His
association with the Iron Guard goes back to at least WWII when
he lived with Iron Guard members in a German controlled military
encampment. [f-299]
Consistent with the goals of the World Anti-Communist
League and the American Security Council, Ronnett has organized
Contra support activities in the Chicago area. Exposed as an Iron
Guard Leader by Chicago NBC affiliate WMAQ-TV (see Appendix),
Ronnett denounced his accusers, and said proudly that he had
received frequent invitations to visit the White House due to his
support for and organizing on behalf of the Contras. [f-300]
The ABN is the high council for the expatriate nationalist
groups that formed the police, military and militia units that
worked with Hitler during World War II. Some were organized as
mobile killing teams that exterminated villages and sought to
murder whole ethnic, racial, and cultural groups. These mobile
killing teams are the forerunners of the modern death squad. It
is consistent, then, that the Latin American Anti-Communist
Confederation (CAL) (for many years the Latin American branch of
WACL) has a great affinity for the ABN and its members, according
to several ABN members. CAL historically has served as an
umbrella group for the regional death squads. [f-301]
A meeting of the youth sections of CAL and ABN in 1983 took
place in Fedorak's Ukrainian Cultural Center in Warren, Michigan.
The resulting 16-point resolution bore statements that might
surprise some of their conservative U.S. supporters. Not only
were the usual anti-communist sentiments expressed, but also
anti-capitalist positions were taken. One point, for instance,
called for "rejection of {all materialist {doctrines} (author's
emphasis) which defile the human individual by treating people as
egotistical, covetous and selfish beings. . . ." [f-302] The
resolution called for a "faith in Revolutionary, liberation
nationalism. . ." and "unbending opposition to collectivist
slavery, against communist and capitalist alienation of human
labor. . . ." [f-303]
These formulations mirror the classic outlines of National
Socialism, which simultaneously fought the Communist and Western
Capitalist powers ideologically and militarily. The Third Way,
rejecting East and West, is still a position taken by significant
elements of the contemporary neo-Nazi movement. [f-304]
The Stetskos were not only leaders of OUN but the
multi-ethnic ABN as well. The July-August, 1983 ABN bulletin carries several cover photos which show the
Stetskos and other ABN leaders as White House guests in July
1983, personally meeting with Reagan, George Bush and Jeane Kirkpatrick.
After the Stetskos visited the White House, Yaroslav
Stetsko's wife Slava Stetsko, who lives in Munich, West Germany,
called on the ABN to support Reagan's re-election. She carried
that message to ABN chapters during 1984 as well. [f-305] The
Reagan campaign cooperated with ABN, including scheduling an
appearance by Michael Sotirhos, head of Ethnic Voters for
Reagan-Bush Campaign 1984 as well as the Republican Heritage
Groups Council, at the 1984 ABN conference in New York City. [f-306]
The goal of the ABN is to pressure the U.S. government
toward a "liberation" policy aimed against the USSR, with ABN
leaders as the liberators. Although ABN members say they only
need technical assistance from the West, they want the U.S.
military to put them in power in Eastern Europe and the USSR.
This is the formula they tried under German Nazi sponsorship.
Their manipulations of the American political system are toward
that end.
The emigres of the ABN still dream of one more chance to
create a new order in Europe. They even got Michigan Republican
Congressman Paul Henry to enter a statement into the
in July, 1986 commending the
"independence" of the Ukraine under Stetsko in 1941.
According to Henry, "a representative assembly of the most
prominent Ukrainian leaders from all walks of life issued a
Proclamation of the Restoration of Ukrainia's Independence. .
..The proclamation received enthusiastic support of the Ukrainian
people." Henry referred to the "freedom fighters" of the
"Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists (OUN), led by Stepan
Bandera." When questioned about his praise for a document which
included the line "Glory to the Heroic German Army and its
Fuhrer, Adolph Hitler," a spokesperson for Henry said he'd "not
been aware of the fine print. . . ." [f-307]
On July 20, 1988, George Bush reaffirmed the ties between
the Republican Party and the ABN by making a campaign stop at
Fedorak's Ukrainian Cultural Center in Warren, Michigan. Bush
delivered a hard-line foreign policy speech to those attending
the annual Captive Nations banquet sponsored jointly by the
Captive Nations Committee and the ABN. Sharing the dais with
Fedorak and Bush was Katherine Chumachenko, formerly the director
of the UCCA's Captive Nations Committee and currently the Deputy
Director for Public Liaison at the White House. Ignatius M.
Billinsky, President of UCCA, had already been named named
Honorary Chair of Ukrainians for Bush, and Bohdan Fedorak named
National vice-chair of Ukrainians for Bush.
Also on the dais at the Ukrainian Cultural Center Bush
speech was Dr. Joseph Sazyc, who has led the Byelorussian-
American Veterans Association for twenty years. While the group's
name suggests its members were veterans of U.S. military service,
the group includes Nazi collaborators. According to a 1948 U.S.
intelligence report, the Byelorussian-American Veterans
Association was originally formed in 1947 by Nazi collaborators
at a German displaced persons camp. The leader of the group was
former SS Major General Franz Kushel, described in the first
section of this report. [f-308]
ALLIES AND ALLEGIANCES
- The Campaign Against OSI -
At the July, 1988 Captive Nations banquet in Michigan, Vice
President Bush was introduced by Bohdan Fedorak [see photo],
whose brief comments included a strong denunciation of the U.S.
Justice Department's Office of Special Investigations (OSI). Bush
nodded his agreement and applauded the comment.
There is perhaps no current issue which sets the emigre
fascist network apart from mainstream American society more than
the campaign against the Office of Special Investigations.
The OSI was established by a 1978 act of Congress to
discover and deport Nazi war criminals who entered the U.S. after
World War II. Almost immediately the
(published by the Ukrainian Congress Committee of America)
denounced OSI, as did the quasi-Nazi Liberty Lobby and the
neo-fascist Lyndon LaRouche organization. Soon the
Lithuanian-American Council, the American Lithuanian Community
and the Joint Baltic American National Committee--all members of
the ASC's Coalition for Peace Through Strength--joined in the
anti-OSI campaign. Other Coalition for Peace Through Strength
groups that actively opposed the OSI pursuit of Nazi
collaborators were the Byelorussian-American Association,
Congress of Russian-Americans and the World Federation for a Free
Latvia. [f-309]
While some organizations claimed they only opposed the
methods employed by OSI, others called for its abolition. The
specific method used by OSI which drew the sharpest criticism
concerned the use of evidence from Soviet citizens, archives and
prosecutors. Even though such evidence is independently
scrutinized and tested by the U.S. government and must meet U.S.
rules of evidence in court, the anti-OSI groups call it "KGB
evidence" without offering any proof of their own to back up that
assertion. All of the above groups claim there is an "OSI/KGB
partnership." [f-310] None of the groups has supported the legal
proceedings against even one suspected war criminal, even when
the accused has publicly confessed his crimes. The charges of KGB
plots, according to the Anti-Defamation League of B'nai B'rith,
appear to be a "propaganda smokescreen that seeks to exploit
anti-communism," in an attempt to stop the OSI investigations and
legal proceedings. [f-311]
Right-wing groups such as Accuracy in Media and individuals
such as former Reagan advisor Patrick Buchanan and writer Joseph
Sobran have joined in the anti-OSI campaign.
A New Hampshire organization, the American Freedom Company,
which publishes a periodical called , began anti-OSI
activity as early as 1982. [F-312] The group is a member
organization of the Coalition for World Freedom, the political
arm of Singlaub's U.S. Council for World Freedom. [f-313]
The emigre fascists have employed a variety of methods to
protect those charged with war crimes and to stop the OSI
investigations. These methods include lobbying Congress and the
White House, urging their respective ethnic communities not to
cooperate with government investigators, and in some cases,
employing increasingly anti-Semitic propaganda and historical
revisionism which denies the facts of the Nazi Holocaust.
The Lithuanian-American Council (LAC) is an example of a
group that practices the latter technique. In 1979 the Council
published a book that blamed the Germans and the Jews but not the
Lithuanians (other than a few "irresponsible Lithuanians with
criminal inclinations") for the annihilation of Lithuanian Jews.
[f-314] A 1986 book distributed by the LAC suggests that Jews
brought persecution on themselves, [f-315] while another
LAC-distributed book (available by mail order from LAC or from
the literature rack at their offices in Chicago) praises
pre-Christian, pagan Lithuania. [f-316] The 1975 book, by Charles
Pichel (see Order of St. John in Part 2) says that "Christianity
has failed her [Lithuania] miserably and as a result, many
Samogitians [Lithuanians] have turned to ancient, pagan
prophecies as a guide and hope for their future." [f-317]
Why the Lithuanian-American Council promotes a brand of
paganism used as the basis for the racialist beliefs of Nordic
chauvinists ranging from Nazi Heinrich Himmler to racialist Roger
Pearson is in itself unclear, but then the Lithuanian-American
Council has never acknowledged--much less condemned--the brutal
Lithuanian Greywolves organization and Lithuanian police units
that actively pursued the German Nazi policy of exterminating
Jews, Russians and political opponents of the German military
occupation in that region.
While these emigre organizations concern themselves with
issues other than OSI, several groups have been formed for the
specific purpose of stopping OSI's investigation and deportation
of war criminals. One of these groups, the Coalition for
Constitutional Justice and Security (CCJS), is a member of the
Coalition for Peace Through Strength. It has called for a
suspension of OSI activities and the "initiation of public
inquiries into possible links between OSI, FBI, KGB, extremeist
[sic] groups." [f-318] CCJS is led by Anthony and Danute Mazeika,
who helped arrange the 1986 Republican Heritage Groups Council
Annual Convention in Los Angeles.
The CCJS has also claimed that recent bombings which
targeted two accused war criminals living in the U.S. were "a
direct result of the Justice Department's lack of control of the
Office of Special Investigations' method of operation. . . ." [f-319]
Intense emotions and rhetoric have accompanied the anti-OSI
efforts. The World Jewish Congress has charged that the
motivating factor behind such activity is "the fear that the
Justice Department's prosecutors are exposing the American public
to the historical facts that Hitler's annihilation of six million
Jews was carried out not by the Germans alone, but rather with
the extensive collaboration of Lithuanians, Latvians, Ukrainians,
Estonians, and other Europeans." [f-320]
Various fascist emigre elements have, over the years,
attempted to present themselves as advocates of human rights and
champions of persecuted minorities. Being identified with Nazi
campaigns of murder does not lend credibility to their assertions
when they make their public presentations in forums ranging from
the Helsinki Human Rights Review to local U.S. rallies endorsed
by Congressional representatives and the President of the United States.
Given the claimed patriotic purpose of the American
Security Council, it makes little sense why the Coalition for
Constitutional Justice and Security is a member of the ASC's
Coalition for Peace Through Strength--especially since the
primary purpose of the group is to shield accused Nazi war
criminals from prosecution. One can also ask why the Republican
National Committee remains indifferent when one of its
components, the Republican Heritage Groups Council, opposes OSI.
- Support for South Africa and Apartheid -
When Jonas Savimbi, the head of the Union for the Total
Independence of Angola (UNITA), met with President Reagan and
Administration officials in a high profile, whirlwind tour of the
Capital in January, 1986, it represented the success of a
ten-year American Security Council effort to get recognition and
funding for UNITA. Savimbi's Washington visit was hosted and
coordinated by the American Security Council. [f-321]
UNITA is a South African-allied military force attempting
to take over the government of Angola. The government of Angola,
which is unfriendly to the apartheid regime in South Africa, came
to power in 1975, despite a major CIA effort that supported
UNITA. [f-322] Since then, a virtual South African lobby has
sprung up in American right-wing circles demanding a defense of
the apartheid regime.
"We first invited Savimbi to come to the U.S. in 1975,"
says ASC president John Fisher. "We paid for a plane to bring him
here with a dozen staff from Africa. We set them up in a hotel
for 10 days. We set up Congressional meetings." [f-323] Congress
at the time was preparing to cut off aid to UNITA. The Clark
Amendment was finally passed, which barred further aid to UNITA.
The ASC began what it called a decade-long "educational
campaign" to have the amendment repealed. In 1981, Savimbi again
was an ASC guest at its Virginia estate, and meetings with "the
Secretary of State [Alexander Haig] and numerous Congressional
leaders" were arranged, according to an ASC newsletter. [f-324]
With the repeal of the Clark amendment in 1985, ASC hosted a
celebration with members of Congress and UNITA's Jeremias
Chitunda, who said that "John Fisher has always been standing by
us. . . ." [f-325]
The effort to aid UNITA was so crucial to the ASC that they
gave their 1986 "Distinguished Service Award" to Senator Bob Dole
for his behind-the-scenes work on behalf of UNITA. Dole is now
attempting to do the same for another South Africa-backed
operation against Mozambique called RENAMO. [f-326] RENAMO has
ties to the World Anti-Communist League (WACL) and its
representatives spoke at the WACL 1984 and 1985 conferences.
The ASC has worked with South Africa itself, and not just
its proxies. In 1979 an ASC "fact-finding mission" visited South
Africa, then-white supremacist Rhodesia, and South
Africa-occupied Namibia. [f-327] The trip was funded and
coordinated by the Southern African Freedom Foundation, which had
been exposed the year before as a project secretly funded by the
South African government. [f-328] Press coverage at the time
identified Ray Ackerman, a Capetown businessman, as an architect
of the SAFF. [f-329]
The ASC praised Ackerman with "a special debt of thanks,"
for helping to raise the "funds needed for the project." Ian
Smith, head of the white minority Rhodesian regime, had been a
guest at the ASC estate near Boston, Virginia just months
earlier. [f-330]
Two months after the Reagan Administration came to power,
the ASC hosted and coordinated the visit of five military
intelligence officials from South Africa to the U.S., including
the head of military intelligence. The Council arranged for them
to meet with staff at the Pentagon's Defense Intelligence Agency
and the National Security Council. [f-331] Through Roger Pearson
associate and Jesse Helms staffer Jim Lucier, meetings were
arranged on Capitol Hill. [f-332] A meeting was also arranged
with then-Ambassador to the United Nations Jeane Kirkpatrick.
[f-333] Because South African military officials were supposed to
be banned from U.S. visits, the intelligence officials were
hurried out of the U.S. after six days of activity, including a
two-day briefing for the ASC on Southern Africa. [f-334] Several
days after the visit, then-Secretary of State Al Haig called for
the repeal of the Clark Amendment. [f-335]
Several member organizations of the Coalition for Peace
Through Strength are also close to South Africa's apartheid
regime. In 1983, for instance, Jack Abramoff went to South Africa
as chairman of the College Republican National Committee to begin
an ongoing relationship with the extreme right National Student
Federation (NSF). The NSF noted this as a "grand alliance of
conservative students. . .an alliance that would represent the
swing to the right amongst the youth in America and Western
Europe." [f-336] After an exchange of trips between College
Republicans and South African student rightists, the College
Republican National Council passed a resolution condemning
"deliberate planted propaganda by the KGB," and "Soviet proxy
forces" in Southern Africa, without mentioning apartheid or
racism. [f-337] The National Student Federation, which says that
72% of its funding comes from corporations, resolved out of these
meetings "To inspire, focus and unite the national will. . .to
achieve. . .`Peace Through Strength'." [f-338]
Another Coalition for Peace Through Strength member, the
Conservative Caucus (which is also part of the World
Anti-Communist League), works directly with South African
government officials.
Caucus Chair Howard Phillips cosponsors trips to South
Africa (at a $4,000 fee) which offer "confidential intelligence
and financial briefings" and meetings "with the very highest
officials of government, business, banking and the military in
South Africa." Also promised are "military intelligence
briefings." Ads for such trips are placed in John Birch Society
publications. [f-339] The Conservative Caucus lobbies vigorously
for UNITA and attempted to initiate a corporate campaign against
Gulf Oil/Chevron for buying Angolan oil. [f-340]
Phillips and Abramoff have both supported campaigns calling
for the dismissal of Chester Crocker and George Shultz from the
State Department because they are seen as insufficiently
supportive of South Africa. [f-341] The "Dump Schultz" campaign
grew out of a meeting of the Council for National Policy, [f-342]
a secret membership group that has included Phillips, Abramoff,
then-National Security Council officials Oliver North and John
Lenczowski, WACL chair John Singlaub, and many others with ASC
interlocks. [f-343] CNP's secret quarterly meetings bring
together right-wing funders (such as Joseph Coors) and foreign
policy activists. [f-344] The June 1987 speaker was Richard
Secord. [f-345] Secord was a major player in the Iran Contra-gate
arms for hostages private network.
Because the ASC and WACL have a shared history, leadership
and political outlook, it seems appropriate to note one other
South African connection to American rightists.
Although it doesn't show up on the list of delegates at
WACL conferences, WACL has a South African chapter. It has been
headed for years by Ivor Benson, [f-346] who has also been the
South African correspondent to [F-347]
the notoriously anti-Semitic newspaper published by the
quasi-Nazi Liberty Lobby. Benson wrote a speech for the 1986
meeting of the Institute for Historical Review, [f-348] an
organization devoted to proving the Nazi Holocaust against Jews
and others was a hoax. The Institute is the brainchild of Willis
Carto, who also runs Liberty Lobby and . Benson was
unable due to illness to attend the 1986 IHR conference, but his
speech was delivered by a colleague (at the same IHR event
attended by Dr. Ronnett). Benson's speech implied that South
Africa's troubles were due to a Jewish conspiracy. [F-349]
Like other friends of Liberty Lobby who are also members of
WACL, Benson stays out of sight so as to not embarrass other
African delegates. He has, however, addressed at least one
meeting of North American WACL chaired by Gen. Singlaub. South
Africa's main interest in WACL is to garner support for UNITA and
RENAMO. Benson's direct and publicized presence could only hurt
this effort at coalition- building, so he stays in the shadows.
Path: oneb!cs.ubc.ca!destroyer!caen!uunet!olivea!sgigate!sgi!cdp!cberlet
ALLIES AND ALLEGIANCES
- Central America, Death Squads and the ASC -
Much of Central America has been plagued by poverty,
corruption and U.S.-backed dictatorships for most of this century.[f-350]
In Nicaragua, the Somoza family had ruled from 1933 to
1979. In the 1970's, a form of "crony capitalism" similar to that
of former Philippines dictator Ferdinand Marcos also dominated
the politics and economy of Nicaragua. Few prospered without the
blessing of Anastasio Somoza. A small corrupt circle of wealthy
landowners and National Guard leaders ruthlessly maintained their
hold over Nicaragua.
When the Somoza regime in Nicaragua collapsed and the
Sandinista coalition came to power on July 19, 1979, the American
Security Council was quick to respond. "The Marxist Threat to
Central America" was the headline and sole topic of its
newsletter, , August, 1979. It immediately
formed a Task Force on Central America. "The goal of that Task
Force is to be an energizing element within the Congress and
within the two political parties that would seek to force the
[Carter] Administration to correct its policies toward Central
America." By which they meant, get rid of the Sandinistas.
The ASC Task Force on Central America included a handful of
retired generals, including John Singlaub, Daniel O. Graham,
Richard Stillwell, Gordon Sumner, William P. Yarborough and
Alexander Haig. Congressional members included Larry McDonald
(D-GA), George Hansen (R-ID), John Murphy (D-NY), Bob Stump
(R-AR), and Charles Wilson (D-TX). Retired Admiral Thomas Moorer,
also of the Task Force, saw threats "all the way from Mexico down
to the Cape of South America." [f-351]
The ASC sought to make a popular issue out of Nicaragua for
the 1980 elections, just as the Panama Canal issue had aided the
Right for the previous four years. The film "Attack on the
Americas" was produced in 1980, the first of three ASC films on
Central America. It depicted all revolution as the result of KGB
machinations rather than as responses to conditions in Central
America itself. Even Florida was judged to be threatened.
As the Task Force name implied, the ASC was interested in
all of Central America, not just Nicaragua. In 1979, a delegation
of ASC leaders went to Guatemala and met with rightists connected
to the death squads there. The delegation, led by Graham and
Singlaub, told the ruling Guatemala military that they would urge
Reagan to resume aid to the military dictatorship, which Carter
had terminated because of the military's death squad activity. An
estimated 100,000 deaths resulted from the brutal pacification
programs in rural Guatemala in the late 1970's and early '80's.
After the ASC delegation briefed him, one Guatemalan official was
quoted as saying he felt the message was clear, "Mr. Reagan
recognizes that a good deal of dirty work has to be done." Within
days of the ASC visit, there was a dramatic increase in death
squad activity. [f-352]
Latin America has death squads, active or dormant, from
Mexico to Argentina. Most, if not all, are linked to military
intelligence and police or national guard units. [f-353] They
also have above-ground political organizations complementing
their covert activity. These political organizations publicly
advocate the most extreme measures against dissent within their
respective countries. [f-354]
The ties between the legal political organizations, death
squads, the American Security Council and World Anti-Communist
League can be found in several countries including El Salvador,
Guatemala, and Argentina.
Such was the case with the Argentine Anti-Communist
Alliance (AAA) in the 1970's. It was an organization of
right-wing murder, terror, and propaganda whose activity was
coordinated with the military regime. [f-355] It was also the
Argentine branch of the World Anti-Communist League.[f-356]
Roberto D'Aubuisson, closely identified with the death
squads of El Salvador, is affiliated with the ARENA party and he
serves as that country's representative to WACL.
During a 1981 trip to Washington, D.C., Roberto D'Aubuisson
was an honored guest at an ASC conference, although D'Aubuisson
had already been linked to El Salvadoran death squad activities,
including the 1980 murder of Archbishop Oscar Romero. The purpose
of the D'Aubuisson visit was to enhance his support in Congress. [f-357]
The ASC also conducted an interview with D'Aubuisson in
June of 1984 for its radio program that is broadcast into Latin
America, and for the ASC newsletter. [f-358] A photo of ASC
leader Samuel Dickens and D'Aubuisson still hangs on the ASC
conference room wall. Dickens is a retired colonel who held
various intelligence posts and headed the Air Force Directorate
of Plans for the Western Hemisphere.
In early 1987 the ASC also organized a Washington reception
for Alfredo Christiani, D'Aubuisson's successor as head of the
extreme right ARENA party. Over 150 attended the reception,
according to the ASC. [f-359]
As an ASC and World Anti-Communist League organizer,
Singlaub also worked with D'Aubuisson. One mercenary magazine
photo shows Singlaub and D'Aubuisson studying a military map in
El Salvador. [f-360]
Under Somoza in Nicaragua, the National Guard was the base
of WACL. In Guatemala, Mario Sandoval Alarcon is the leader of
the National Liberation Movement, a political party, as well as
the leader of the death squads in that country. [f-361] He is
also the Guatemalan representative to WACL.
An official spokesman of the National Liberation Movement
(MLN) glorified the violence of his movement in terms strikingly
similar to those used by Mussolini:
"I admit that the MLN is the party of organized violence.
Organized violence is vigor, just as organized color is scenery
and organized sound is harmony. There is nothing wrong with
organized violence; it is vigor, and the MLN is a vigorous
movement. [f-362]"
The ASC view of death squads was probably best expressed by
Neil Livingstone, whose Institute on Terrorism and Subnational
Conflict works out of the ASC offices. Often perceived as an
opponent of terrorism, Livingstone wrote in ,
Winter 1983-84, that "the problem of human rights is genuinely
bad in Guatemala and El Salvador. We should not wring our
hands, however, over this problem." After giving a misleading
explanation of the origins of death squads, Livingstone advocates
their use because "they have helped more governments remain in
power than they have harmed." He offers Argentina as an example.
>Argentina is one country where the death squads embraced the swastika.
Livingstone, who also serves on the ASC Foundation's
Strategy Board, wrote in , (a monthly publication
under the control of Rev. Sun Myung Moon), that "methods are
needed that involve targeting individual terrorists and their
leadership for assassination." [F-363] A box accompanying
the article identifies such groups as the African National
Congress and the ruling party of Zimbabwe as "terrorist." [f-364]
Livingstone works with other Reagan Administration
luminaries through his role with , whose editorial
board includes Jeane Kirkpatrick and her husband Evron; as well
as pro-Contra activists Penn Kemble and Joshua Muravchic.
Livingstone's Institute also employed Robert Owen, Oliver
North's courier in secret Contra-support operations. Owen, a
former staffer of then-Senator Dan Quayle, met with a key Contra
organizer of the southern front against Nicaragua, John Hull, in
Quayle's office. According to the , "After a
long talk about conditions in Central America, Mr. Owen escorted
Hull to the White House, where he met Col. [Oliver] North. In
August, 1983, Mr. Owen testified that he made his first trip to
Central America, traveling to Costa Rica on a round-trip ticket
provided by Mr. Hull." [F-365]
North discussed the secret operation with Livingstone.
[f-366] According to the , Livingstone's
Institute received at least $75,000 from International Business
Communications (IBC). IBC was part of the Oliver North network
which funded various pro-Contra operations while working closely
with Carl "Spitz" Channel's National Endowment for the
Preservation of Liberty>. [F-367]
The ASC's Director for Inter-American Affairs is Samuel
Dickens. An associate of contra military commander Enrique
Bermudez when they were on the Inter-American Defense Board in
1976, Dickens says that in 1981, "I took him to meet people at
the State Department and Defense Department, saying this is a
man, these are the efforts that should be supported." [f-368]
Dickens traveled in Honduras in 1981 "on the border of
Nicaragua. . .meeting and really reviewing some of his forces."
He adds that "the ASC is one of a number of organizations that
put [Congressional funding for the contras] really high on the
priority list of things to accomplish."
Connected into the Latin American extreme right, Dickens
believes in a hardline military policy toward the civil war in El
Salvador. In 1985, he wrote an article for that
attacked El Salvadoran President Napoleon Duarte's gestures
toward negotiations with the FDR opposition. Dickens claimed that
"Many people in El Salvador consider the word `negotiations' to
be a `bad word,' and with complete justification." He called
advocates of negotiations "dreamers." [F-369] In 1985, in
another article in , Dickens praised the founder of El
Salvador's death squads as "the patriotic General Medrano," and
called Medrano's critics "fools." [F-370] is the
magazine of the Tecos, a Mexican neo-Nazi group noted for
bizarre anti-Semitism and for its longtime leadership of the
Latin American affiliate of the World Anti-Communist League--an
affiliate which served as the political umbrella of Latin
America's death squads. [F-371]
The same murderous policies pursued by the Romanian Iron
Guard when it collaborated with Hitler are praised as appropriate
and necessary by current ideologues in Latin America. The Iron
Guard, for instance, appears to be allied with the Pinochet
regime in Chile. Pinochet has personally met with Iron Guard
leaders, and several Guardists proudly display photographs of
themselves individually posing with Pinochet and his wife. In
turn, Iron Guard propaganda, such as Alexander Ronnett's
publication, , praises Chile, speaks of the "years of
progress" under Pinochet, and expresses its hope "that other
>nationalist governments will follow the example of President
Pinochet." Pinochet is secretly funding WACL according to
Ronnett. [F-372] That the Pinochet regime would ally
itself with pro-Nazi elements was evident as early as 1974, when
Chile's new ambassador to the United States met with Austin App
and others to discuss improving Chile's image in the U.S.
press. [f-373]
In the introduction, by Dr. Dimitrie Gazdaru, to the
English language translation of , by Iron
Guard founder Codreanu, the policies of the Iron Guard are seen
as having current application in Latin America:
". . .level-headed youth in several parts of the convulsed
globe are now being guided more and more by the doctrine of the
movement ideated by Codreanu. The most telling demonstration of
this is the recent recognition of it by healthy-minded youth in
Chile, whose spokesman, an eminent university professor, clearly
declares that the anti-communist victory there has initiated
posthumous victories for Corneliu Codreanu.[f-374]"
The ideological training of many of the Latin American
death squad members emphasizes the brutal tactics and theories of
Mussolini and Hitler. Sometimes the connection is quite direct.
For instance, after WWII, Third Reich collaborator Klaus Barbie
actually continued to ply his gruesome trade in Bolivia as an
advisor to the government-sanctioned death squads and a supporter
of a 1980 pro-Nazi coup. [f-375] Some death squad members have
openly sported swastikas.
These are the groups Singlaub, WACL and the ASC work with
internationally. The words may change from Counter-insurgency to
Special Operations to Low-Intensity Conflict, but these are
merely deceptive terms for what history calls war. As an advisor
to the Contras, the Pentagon, Oliver North and others, Singlaub
provides advice based on his own experience, including Operation
Phoenix, a covert operation which employed cross-border raids,
terrorism and assassination against Vietnamese civilians. [f-376]
Now applying those lessons to aid the Contras, Singlaub declared
on the Phil Donahue show that "my life has been dedicated to...
low-intensity warfare." [f-377]

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